


What Happens in Budapest...

by eternaleponine



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 11:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the mission, Clint and Natasha return to their hotel.  Clint decides to bring Natasha dinner, and more importantly, dessert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happens in Budapest...

"Room Service," Clint called through the door, rapping his knuckles against it and stepping to the side, assuming she would answer the door with a gun drawn. She hadn't ordered room service, after all, and would likely suspect a trap. Which this was, a bit, but not of the kind she was expecting.

"I didn't order room service," she said. He swore he could feel the warmth of her body pressed up against the door, her back to his even though she didn't know it.

"Agent Romanoff, open the door. Please," he added after a moment's hesitation.

"Barton?"

"Yeah."

The door opened slowly, and he wondered if there was something else rattling her. The mission was over, and it had gone as smoothly as anything ever did. He didn't think there was any threat of retribution any time soon. They'd made their point quite clearly. "What do you want?" she asked.

"I brought food," he said, holding up a bag.

"I'm not hungry." She started to shut the door, but Clint wedged his boot between it and the frame. She glanced down, and when she looked up she didn't even have to voice what she was thinking: _I will break it if I have to._

"You haven't eaten all day," Clint said. "Don't be stubborn." When she still hesitated, her eyes darting past him, he sighed. "You know me better than that."

"Come in," she said finally, stepping back to let him in. He set the food on the small table in the corner, pulling out a chair for her and waiting for her to sit. She looked up at him and rolled her eyes. "Go ahead."

He sat down, almost but not quite side-by-side, and they ate in silence. For all that Natasha said she wasn't hungry, Clint couldn't help noticing that her meal disappeared very quickly. When they'd cleared away the remains, he produced dessert: a large slice of chocolate cake.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to seduce me," she said, but there was something slightly wary in her tone, and something warning, an edge that implied that he'd better not be.

"Good thing you know better," Clint said. The trouble was, he didn't. Or he did, but he was ignoring it. They'd danced around each other, and what they were and weren't, and what they did and didn't feel, for too long. Not a word had been spoken, but it had been there since they met, a will they, won't they tug-of-war where the rope had been getting shorter and shorter.

"Grab a fork," she said, putting the plate halfway between them. This disappeared more slowly, for all that they were sharing it. Each stole glances at the other in turn, looking away when the other started to look back.

"You have something..." Clint reached out to wipe a smudge of chocolate from the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb, bringing it to his own lips and licking it away.

She had tensed when he touched her, but she smirked when he didn't push things. "That was the lamest come-on I've ever seen," she said. "If you ask me if it hurt, _you'll_ hurt."

"If what hurt?" Clint asked.

"Don't start," Natasha snapped.

"You would never fall unless you meant to," he said. "You never do anything unintentionally." Every move was deliberate, calculated. It was infuriating sometimes, although under most circumstances Natasha Romanoff losing control was terrifying. But if she felt safe...

He wasn't sure she ever felt safe, and more than anything he wanted to be able to give that to her, if only for a few minutes. 

"If you fell, you would have landed on your feet," he finished.

"I was wrong," she said, a smile twitching at the corners of her lips. "You just got lamer."

"What do you expect?" Clint asked. "I could try every trick in the book, but what would be the point? You've seen them all, and you'll have already thought up a counter-attack before I'm halfway there. So I figured I'd try something novel and just... not."

The nascent smile disappeared, and a line formed between her brows. "Not what?"

"Not try. Just be. It'd make a change for both of us." He reached out again, this time smoothing away the furrow in her forehead. He let his touch linger, his fingers sliding into the bright waves of her hair, and let his lips brush where his fingertips had just been. He heard her breath catch, but she didn't pull away.

The corner of her eye, her temple, the hollow behind her ear and just under the angle of her jaw. The dip at the base of her throat. His mouth found all of the soft, vulnerable places, everywhere he might send an arrow for a quick, clean kill, and he kissed them one by one.

He knew that she knew what he was doing. He knew because he could feel her trembling, the faintest of tremors, because she was as terrified as he would be in her position. But he wasn't going to hurt her. He would never hurt her. And somewhere in her fight-or-flight-primed brain, she knew that, because if she didn't, he would be dead.

For a moment he thought he might be, because he felt her hand shift, coming to rest on the back of his neck, but nothing drove itself into the base of his skull, so he decided he must be safe, at least for the moment.

Her mouth met his and it was everything he'd hoped: soft and lush, demanding, inviting, teasing and a little uncertain all at once. She tasted of chocolate and spice and something unidentifiable that was just her. Their tongues met and tangled and let go, and it was only the need for oxygen that forced Clint to break the kiss.

Her breath was warm and moist against his skin as she buried her face against his neck. He reached for her, pulling her closer, wrapping his arms around her, his grip solid but not tight. He didn't want to trap her, only to hold her.

She lifted her head after a moment and their lips met again. She crawled into his lap, straddling him, and it was hard – very hard – to resist the urge to grind up against her. But he didn't want to scare her off, and that might have been pushing too far, too fast. He couldn't help wondering if she had ever been with someone just because she wanted to be. She was called Black Widow for a reason, wasn't she? He knew she had plenty of experience with feigned intimacy, getting in close to get the information that she needed, but how close, he didn't know, and he didn't ask. It was easier for both of them, he suspected, that he not know. But that was just the job. What about the real thing?

Was this real? It felt real to him, but she was unreadable. He couldn't admit how badly he wanted – needed – this to be more than just bodies in motion. That was fine sometimes, but not now. Not here. Not her.

"Natasha..." The word was mumbled against her throat, and he felt her shiver. "We should—"

"Shut up," she growled, nails digging into his skin. She had his head between her hands; she could twist his neck and kill him. She kissed him instead, melted against him and didn't protest when he worked his fingers under the hem of her blouse, stroking the small of her back.

It was a dance, wanting to rush and wanting to hold back, one pushing and the other pulling, back and forth. Clint could sense that Natasha still wasn't sure, that she was battling with herself over something, but he didn't know what. 

The kisses slowed, and Clint opened his eyes as he felt Natasha's forehead rest against his. Her hair tickled his face. He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and Natasha's hand came up to touch him there. Her eyes were wide, her gaze no longer calculating but something else. Wondering, maybe. Almost confused, as if she'd never seen anyone smile so much it left a permanent mark on their face. Maybe she hadn't.

He turned his head to press his lips to her palm and she pulled away as if she'd been burned. That was when clothes started coming off. She took charge, pushing his jacket from his shoulders. He tugged his arms from the sleeves. Her nails scraped lightly over his skin in her haste as she dragged his t-shirt up, sending a jolt of sensation straight to his groin.

His hand splayed at her waist, resting on her hips, his thumbs teasing her belly. Her back arched, and he couldn't help grinning. She looked at him and scowled, but the light in her eyes gave her away. She didn't want him to have control; that was obvious. But the fact that he could undo her, even a little... she liked it. He was pretty sure she liked it.

He worked open one button, then another, working from the bottom up. Her blouse slid from her shoulders, slithering to the ground, revealing milky pale skin. Faint scars marred it here and there, but his was the same, and they were perfect in their imperfection, or at least Clint thought so.

Her lips found his again, and it was all warmth and heat and the press and slide of skin. He fumbled with the back of her bra until she made a sound that was somewhere between a snort and a laugh. He looked at her and she smirked. "It's in the front, isn't it?"

"It might be," she replied.

"Hmph." 

Natasha laughed, and it didn't matter then how silly he felt, because her laugh, along with her smile, was a rare and precious thing when they were genuine. He found the clasp and released it, letting the garment drop as he stood up, his arms clasped under her to hold her up. She was so strong, and had so much presence, that he forgot sometimes how small she was. Her arms twined around his neck and he carried her to the bed, laying them both down.

 _This ought to be easy._

Ought to be, but it wasn't. They couldn't even look at each other, so their eyes stayed on their hands and the places they strayed, touching and testing, tracing lines and curves and angles, teasing soft sighs and sharper gasps from one another. 

He liked the way she bit her lip. It wasn't calculated or deliberate. It wasn't meant to be coy. It was a crack in the façade, a chink in the armor, the tiniest of telltales that she might be as nervous as he was. He reached up to draw it from between her teeth, the corners of his eyes creasing again as she smirked and bit his thumb instead.

 _You are so beautiful_. Words he wouldn't say, because what were words? It was easy to lie with words, but he couldn't lie with his lips and hands and tongue when they remained mute. So he showed her, and he could feel her eyes on him and the brush of her fingers on his hair and cheek and arm, tensing and then pulling back like she wanted to push him away or pull him closer, but she couldn't decide which so she stopped herself so she couldn't do the wrong thing.

She didn't stop him when he began to remove the rest of her clothes, and she didn't stop him when his hands found her hips and his lips made their way from her knee down her thigh. She didn't stop him, so he thought it was okay.

And then her hands were around his throat, too small for a perfect grip but tightening, and stars bloomed at the edges of his vision. He wrapped his fingers around and through hers, pulling her hands away and pressing them to his chest instead as he sprawled beside her. "'Tasha..." he whispered. "Wherever you are..." 

She turned and looked at him, blinked once, then again. Her eyes squeezed tight shut and opened again, and her hands tensed in his. She opened her mouth but he shook his head. "It's all right." She didn't need to explain. Not now. 

"Do you want me to go?" he asked. When she didn't answer, he amended the question. "Do you need me to go?" Because that could be answered with the head rather than the heart. That wasn't nearly so rife with brambles and snares that threatened to slice them both to ribbons. 

"Don't go."

"Okay."

He didn't want to let go of her hands until he was sure that they wouldn't find their way back to his throat. He wasn't sure how long it took before he felt her relax, sensed that she had managed to shake herself free of whatever memory she had temporarily fallen into. But she finally tugged herself free, wrapping her arms around him and pressing close, kissing him again until the moment slipped into memory, and if he'd allowed himself to think about it he might have worried at how easy it was to let it go.

Clint let her take the lead, let her push things as quickly as she wanted (maybe needed) them to go, until they reached the moment that there was no turning back from, the point at which everything would change, one way or another and there was no way to predict. Then he caught her hands again, not so tight that she couldn't pull away if she chose, but tight enough that it forced her to stop and look at him.

It took a minute for him to realize that the ache in his chest was, among other things, lack of oxygen. He was holding his breath because she was holding her breath. When he let it out he looked at her, and she looked back and breathed too. And in that moment something changed. Everything changed.

With that breath, she let go of the fight. She gave in. She surrendered. 

And she smiled.

When it was over, Clint nestled his cheek against the back of her shoulder. Her body fit perfectly into the curve of his, and he held her like that. She wasn't asleep, not yet, but her breath was slowing down, evening out, and she didn't make any move to get away. 

He lifted his head to look down at her, and she turned a little to look back. There was something in the set of her mouth that hinted at amusement, but there was uncertainty in her eyes. He leaned down to kiss her, his nose bumping against hers, and whatever troubled her seemed to ease. 

He settled back down and felt her push back against him, her arms over his. There was a word for this. Chances were good they would never say it, but it didn't matter. They knew.


End file.
